236: Chapter 237 Warning Beyond the Red Lines of Conventional Business! A Long-Established European Tycoon Offers a Close-Quarter Knife

Inside the spacious and quiet CEO office, Shen Du sank deep into his ergonomic leather executive chair.

His right elbow rested on the wide solid wood desk. His long, strong fingers were unconsciously rubbing a yellow sticky note he had just torn off. His rough fingertips traced back and forth over the paper.

On it, an eleven-digit phone number without any signature was scribbled in black ink.

Shen Du applied a slight pressure with his toes, turning the chair to cast his gaze toward the bustling yet cold skyline of Shanghai outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.

In his mind, he quickly reviewed and dissected the brief but information-dense confrontation that had just taken place.

Since the semiconductor breakthrough and Jiyuan Technology being forcibly pushed onto the national destiny gaming table, all the resource support provided by the Shen Family from behind the scenes had consistently maintained a near-mechanical, cold-blooded "strictly business" approach.

Every project approval and every injection of funds strictly adhered to the nation's highest standards. If there was even the slightest hint of non-compliance during operations, someone would immediately issue cold rectification orders until everything perfectly met the requirements.

In this massive and precise high-level machine, Shen Du had never felt even a shred of "intimacy" belonging to blood relations.

When things are abnormal, there must be a demon. That man who called himself Uncle, who wouldn't even mention his full name, had straightforwardly tossed out this private number.

This seemingly casual action had actually completely crossed the "business red line" that the Shen Family had always drawn for him.

At the top of this cold and cruel food chain of power, there was no such thing as warm, sentimental family reunions. A trace of imperceptible chill flashed through the depths of Shen Du's eyes.

He knew all too well what this overstepping of boundaries meant. This was not some casual family chitchat, but a cold warning issued directly from the highest level of the state apparatus.

This thin sticky note was clearly declaring to him: the path ahead would force him to face deadly dangers that conventional commercial rules and legal statutes on the table simply could not resolve.

Shen Du pulled open the bottom locking drawer of his mahogany desk and tossed the thin yellow sticky note inside. With a "click," a crisp metallic locking sound echoed.

He completely stripped away those meaningless personal emotions from his mind. He began to reassess all the cards he currently held from a level of absolute rationality.

On the surface, the total market value of Jiyuan Entertainment was soaring in a frenzy of capital, having faintly touched the threshold of the trillion-dollar mark. Beyond sight, Meituan's massive network deeply embedded in the sinking market was like an invisible super hydraulic pump, endlessly extracting terrifying cash flow for him.

These two assets were enough to make any top billionaire at home or abroad green with envy. But in the current world-class game of life and death, their underlying logic still seemed too thin.

The entertainment landscape and instant delivery, no matter how high their market share, were essentially "golden-egg-laying hens" driven by business models.

In this era where capital is king, as long as the oligarchs across the ocean were willing to throw enough massive funds, they could foster a second or third replica at any time, using brutal price wars to forcibly erode market share.

But the Cold Etching Machine foundry hidden in the far suburbs of Shanghai was completely different. That was not a business model that could be replicated. It was a genuine technological nuclear weapon that had broken through physical limits and was unique in the world.

What was even more fatal was that this "nuclear weapon" was now covered in an incredibly thick layer of national-level bulletproof armor.

Shen Du's pupils contracted slightly in the sunlight refracted by the floor-to-ceiling windows. Facing the Western semiconductor consortium that he had just forced open a gap in with 1.25 billion USD, the underlying logic of the situation had completely changed.

When you own a golden hen that can be replicated, opponents on Wall Street will choose to spend money to imitate and compete through homogenization. But when you hold the world's only non-replicable golden hen, and its existence is enough to completely overturn the technological hegemony that the United States has spent decades building—

those bloodthirsty capitalists and top giants across the ocean would absolutely no longer have any patience to sit at the negotiating table. Their only choice would be to spare no cost, even resorting to the most primitive methods of erasure, to destroy him by any means necessary.

After sorting through all these deadly crises, Shen Du's gaze, which had been slightly unfocused due to deep thoughts, was stimulated by the glaring sunlight outside the window, causing it to refocus with absolute calm.

He looked at the calm, bright blue sky outside the window, his chest rising and falling slightly, and rationally let out an imperceptible sigh: "Under the sun, there really is nothing new."

Only today, having stood completely at the center of the global capital meat grinder, did Shen Du truly and thoroughly understand the famous quote often repeated by the top tycoons of his past life: "Earning one or two million a month is the most relaxed way to live."

He once thought that was just the hypocritical affectation of those in power, moaning without an ailment. But now it seemed that was a cold, objective reality.

In this man-eating real world, ordinary wealth levels earn you top-tier material enjoyment and freedom. But when your technology and assets cross secular red lines and reach a monopoly level sufficient to tip the scales of great power games, all that follows is endless assassination, encirclement, and the abyss.

Shen Du leaned back slowly, pressing his spine seamlessly against the wide leather chair back. From the very second he decided to start from scratch and climb upward step by step, this set of cruel class rules had already taken root in his bones and blood.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Moreover, behind this crown stained with the scent of gunpowder, there stood a behemoth that had already pushed most of its chips onto the gambling table.

Shen Du completely crushed those brief and meaningless philosophical musings in his mind. He ruthlessly stripped away his emotional system.

He applied slight pressure with his feet, turning the leather chair to face the wide solid wood desk again. His long fingers rested on the mouse, and with a crisp "click" of the micro-switch, the monitor, which had been in black sleep mode, was instantly awakened. The cold blue light suddenly lit up, hitting his expressionless face with precision.

In the center of the screen, a schedule for China-Europe semiconductor cooperation was quickly pulled up. As his gaze swept over the dense nodes awaiting confirmation on the progress bar, Shen Du's eyes were as cold and hard as a sharp scalpel.

He knew the current situation better than anyone. From the very second that Cold Etching Machine was completely exposed to the global spotlight in Munich, Jiyuan Technology had completely cut off all paths of retreat.

The macro agreements signed between nations were merely a superficial stage set up after top-level games. The red-headed documents on the paper of the agreement could not magically transform into pieces of high-purity silicon wafers in a clean room.

To truly realize the almost arrogant and grand ambition of "forcibly splitting the world semiconductor landscape in two," the precise flow of those hundreds of billions in funds, the technical authorization for every packaging and testing line, and even the landing of every special screw in the core equipment, all had to be hard-fought by him, the leader of Jiyuan Technology, sitting at the negotiating table one by one.

Just as Shen Du was about to drag the mouse to click on the next production line planning document, "Beep—" In the lower right corner of the large monitor, within Jiyuan Technology's internal communication network, an email notification box with a red highlight label popped up abruptly.

Shen Du moved the cursor, his index finger decisively clicking the left mouse button. This was an official cross-border invitation that had bypassed the Group's Public Relations and Business Departments, sent precisely to his personal terminal. The sender's server suffix bore the glaring official exclusive identification of the old European semiconductor alliance and top consortiums.

The capital oligarchs across the ocean were even more impatient than he had anticipated. Looking at the English characters in the body of the email—rigorously phrased and high-spec, yet revealing aggressive probing at every turn—not a single ripple of surprise stirred on Shen Du's face, illuminated by the cold light of the screen.

He understood the true rules of this cross-border commercial operation all too well. Red-headed documents and diplomatic rhetoric at the national level always discussed the macro big picture and political interest swaps. Everyone shook hands and laughed in front of the cameras, signing only a superficial framework that set the stage. But as soon as it truly entered the implementation phase between enterprises, this warm veil would be instantly torn away. It would be a close-quarters brawl completely stripped of morality, purely for the sake of seizing dominance, discourse power, and the lion's share of profits in the global industrial chain.

Shen Du loosened his right hand from the mouse, his knuckles tapping lightly on the hard solid wood desk. The game between nations had just reached a rest stop in Munich, and the commercial daggers gleaming with cold light on the European capital table had already impatiently been extended before his eyes.